It’s not me… it’s you.

Earlier this afternoon, I hit a new low. I actually had a freakout at my husband about how my life wasn’t what it should be, how I wasn’t as ‘together’ as my friends and how, as a couple, we basically sucked compared to everyone else… no babies, no awesome date nights, no nice house and no sickly sweet photos plastered all over the place.

Needless to say, we were both hurt and upset by my outburst. I apologised, cried a bit and then we had a lovely day together. I know, sounds weird, but that’s how we roll.

Hindsight being what it is, over a lunch of steaming Vietnamese noodle soup, I realised what a big part of my problem is. Facebook.

It’s the first thing I check in the morning, and the last thing I look at before bed. I check it while waiting at the bus stop. I check it a bajillion times every single day. I get messages through Facebook and, if I post a status/photo/video and it gets less than 10 ‘likes’ I legitimately wonder why.

Needless to say the constant bombardment of the lives of others has had an effect… a negative one, it would seem.

It’s tiring, constantly comparing yourself to others when it comes to weight, happiness, career, children and so on. Funnily enough, we don’t even WANT kids anytime in the remotely near future, but for whatever reason I still get jealous of friends who have adorable little ones. That probably makes me a horrible person, but there it is.

So… I’m disconnecting from Facebook for a time. I’m not on Twitter/Instagram much these days, but I’ll be deleting the apps for those off of my phone as well. I don’t need that sort of negativity and pressure in my life, so I’m doing something about it.

Part of me worries–how will my friends reach me? But actually, any friends who are even bothered to reach me these days have my number/email/whatsapp. They’ll manage, and, most importantly, they’ll understand. The thing I’ll miss the most from Facebook? My sister’s frequent photos of my nephew… but she can just send them to me instead.

If you’re interested in getting in touch, tweet me at @stephanie_khani or email me at emailthelondondiaries [at] gmail.com!

I completely agree! I’ve found that sites like Facebook or any kind of social network that allows you to endlessly scroll, can be bad if not limited. I am extremely happy with my life and would feel great first thing in the morning until I did that horrible thing – mindlessly scrolled through Facebook. Voila! I felt like my life was pathetic. It turns out that my husband felt the same way, so now we simply encourage each other to do better things with our time than thoughtlessly scrolling!
All the best,